Brokenback

The 1970s is a boom period for the Australian coal industry. Steaming coal, coking coal, it doesn’t matter; customers from all around the world want it yesterday. On the east coast, inland from Newcastle on the South Maitland Coalfields, Tommy Gann drives a continuous miner, a machine that can fill a fifteen ton shuttle car in less than ninety seconds. From Western Australia, he was drawn to the Brokenback Mine to get away from unscrupulous people who’d caused a near-fatal accident to his father at a mine in the Collie Basin. Working nineteen hundred feet below the surface in the Greta Seam – with over ten feet of coal above him for a roof – is a new experience for him. Roof falls are a major concern. So is a shuttle car driver who lives a perilous existence with little concern for others. There’s the union man, determined to fight management tooth and nail for the benefit of the mineworker. There’s also a life outside the mine and the love for a woman Tommy can’t have. Then tragedy strikes and lives are changed forever. The Brokenback story is a tale of love, humour, tragedy, and drama. It describes the mateship between the mineworkers and the hardships they face in their everyday routine - and why they wouldn’t want to work anywhere else but the underground. It also looks at the sufferings of miners from earlier years, those who’ve contracted pneumoconiosis, a debilitating and, for most, a fatal lung disease.Some of the underground scenarios depicted in this book are based on the author’s experience working in underground coalmines. A number of events actually happened and, because of this, names and dates have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.